Tobias Rieth

Tobias Rieth, son of Jacob and Gustin Elk Rieth, was born in Wurttenbury, Germany, March 15, 1861. He was the third oldest of four brothers and two sisters. He received his school education in Wurttenbury and was confirmed from the Lutheran Church at Wurttenbury.

At the age of sixteen he took up the baker trade for four years. At the age of twenty he served in the regular German army one year. After leaving the army he came to the United States with his father and brother in 1882, going directly to the Sanborn vicinity, where he worked for the NP railroad for four years.

In 1886 he filed a homestead in Green Township.

Karoline Bohn, was born in Wurttenbury, Germany July 11 , 1 864. She received her school education and was confirmed in the Lutheran faith at Wurttenbury. She came to the United States in 1887 and lived at Hope, North Dakota, where she worked on a farm until her marriage to Tobias Rieth.

Tobias Rieth and Karoline Bohn were united in marriage on July 22, 1888 and made their home on the homestead in Green Township where they both lived until the time of their deaths. They had all the hardships that went with pioneering. Their first house and barn were sod shacks, and their only means of transportation was walking. Karoline spent the first years of their marriage alone on the homestead, doing both outside and inside work, while Tobias went miles away to find work to earn money enough to buy the tools and machinery to farm their land.

The land on their homestead was all prairie and they broke the soil with a walking plow and team of oxen.

Their home was blessed with eight children.

  1. Two died in infancy

  2.  

with two girls and four boys living to woman and manhood to have families of their own.

Tobias passed away April 5, 1932 at the age of 71 and Karoline passed away September 30, 1936 at the age of 72.

Children of Tobias and Karoline Rieth were:

Carl born October 29, 1892, died in 1963;

William, born June 9, 1896;

Fred born April 1 , 1899; died 1943;

Emma (Mrs. Richard Still) born February 22, 1902, died 1944;

John, born August 4, 1904 and

Minnie (Mrs. Lloyd Johnson) born December 31, 1906.

Source: Barnes County History 1976 Page 205